Thugs/Traps and Robot/Traps

I see alot of people picking Robot/Traps Over Thugs/Traps.

I see the base value for the Protector Bots shields is around 7ish. And the base value for the Enforcers maneuvers is around 6.5ish (dont quote on these numbers). How greedy are the protector bots with the shielding. Should I expect it on me often, not often enough? Rarely?

It seems with the enforcers that I would not have to wait around for bubbles. Cast and equip/upgrade the enforcers, bam done. And then close to 20ish% defense total. Now for the Protector bots to shield me and the others, will they do it during a fight, or just when things die down? (no pun intended).

Thanks for the info, been trying to decide what to choose between these two, so trying to weigh the pro's and con's.

It's true, manuvers does have the advantage over bubbles. However, I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the bots have a higher resistance than the thugs, so with that in mind, it might balance out. Maybe someone can clarify this?

I do not believe that you benefit from your Enforcer's Manuvers sadly

I thought the reason why people pick Bots/Traps over Thugs/Traps was because the burn patches of the Assault Bot.

Thugs maneuvers scales up so that when you're 50 (and the lieuts are 49) it will be 8.43 defense per lieut, which is higher than the bots shields. In battle, since the bots cast their shield, if you lose a protector bot the rest of your pets don't immediately lose defense, which is not the case with thugs lieuts; however, thugs lieuts benefit from their own maneuvers (protector bots cannot cast on themselves, just each other), so they are less likely to die and cause this sort of cascade. Bots will shield some in battle, but sometimes if they are fighting they might "forget" to shield you. Thugs maneuvers also only affect thugs, not you and not other pets, while the protector bots will bubble you (once) and anything you summon that is targetable.

If you go bots with the intention of leveraging the burn patches, you pretty much have to go with the mu immob, just fyi.

There are lots of reasons.

Theme being one.
Robots attract a lot of players simply for looks.
Robots are fully ranged, which appeals to users.

That's just three I don't recall quickly seeing anyone write down. We can (and have) argued bots vs thugs for a long time. At the end of the day they are usually ranked 1A and 1B in some arbitrary order by the Mastermind community.

I use Web Envelope and it's lack of -kb doesn't make much of a difference with the burn patches. It has a wider radius than the Mu one and more useful side effects.

On to the difference between Bots and Thugs. The big difference is that Thugs have better ST damage with almost as much AoE potential, However Bots are more durable and their damage type is less resisted.

I think that the +Def from the enforcers and Protector bots is a wash. The bubbles are fire and forget with no worrying about LoS or being out of range of the Enforcer and they also effect the MM as well, while Maneuvers is stronger, affects all thugs (not just yours) and double stacks on the enforcers themselves.

One thing to keep in mind, if you're going to team: the bonuses of the Enforcers do stack with the bonuses from other Enforcers. So a team with two Thug MMs gets twice the bonuses for each MM's Thugs.